The German ones actually mean "not to hear / not to see sth.". This can actually cause confusion because it is not immediately obvious that the German speaker didn't mean "overhear", or the English speaker didn't mean "überhören", respectively.

Wipe the glass. This is the usual way to start, even in the days, day and night, only a happy one.

The German ones actually mean "not to hear / not to see sth.". This can actually cause confusion because it is not immediately obvious that the German speaker didn't mean "overhear", or the English speaker didn't mean "überhören", respectively.

Ooh, excellent! I wonder if we can make this even knottier. The noun form of "oversee" is "oversight", which can mean either "supervision" or "omission".

The German ones actually mean "not to hear / not to see sth.". This can actually cause confusion because it is not immediately obvious that the German speaker didn't mean "overhear", or the English speaker didn't mean "überhören", respectively.

Ooh, excellent! I wonder if we can make this even knottier. The noun form of "oversee" is "oversight", which can mean either "supervision" or "omission".

I think we can! Übersicht is neither oversight nor supervision or omission, but rather overview.

On Wikipedia around 2005, the developers borrowed a German software module, Aufsicht , into English as "extension:Oversight", with the verb also being called "oversight" and the agent of this verb being "oversighter". For some reason, perhaps just to make it easier for developers, even the German Wikipedia came to use the term "Oversight " instead of the original Aufsicht.

In any case, the meaning of the word was not the same as either of the established meanings of the English word. The extension has been replaced by "RevisionDelete" but the use of "oversight(er)" is still common even though the two extensions are originally two separate modules.

There are three verbs in Japanese that are pronounced “haku” (履く “to put on/wear (lower-body clothing or shoes)”, 吐く “to vomit”, and 掃く “to sweep”), and it just occurred to me that at an earlier period in the language’s history, all of these verbs would have been pronounced “faku”.

The German ones actually mean "not to hear / not to see sth.". This can actually cause confusion because it is not immediately obvious that the German speaker didn't mean "overhear", or the English speaker didn't mean "überhören", respectively.

Ooh, excellent! I wonder if we can make this even knottier. The noun form of "oversee" is "oversight", which can mean either "supervision" or "omission".

I think we can! Übersicht is neither oversight nor supervision or omission, but rather overview.

Also maybe one could add colloquial German rübersehen/rübergucken which for me usually means 'to proofread' aka 'to look over'. Probably there is some German dialect where this is rüberschauen.

There are three verbs in Japanese that are pronounced “haku” (履く “to put on/wear (lower-body clothing or shoes)”, 吐く “to vomit”, and 掃く “to sweep”), and it just occurred to me that at an earlier period in the language’s history, all of these verbs would have been pronounced “faku”.

(More accurately [ɸaku])

That's the problem if you speak a language with about 100 possible syllables (even Mandarin, the popular synonym of a language full of homophones, has about a thousand!). I am pretty sure there are dozens like this.

There are three verbs in Japanese that are pronounced “haku” (履く “to put on/wear (lower-body clothing or shoes)”, 吐く “to vomit”, and 掃く “to sweep”), and it just occurred to me that at an earlier period in the language’s history, all of these verbs would have been pronounced “faku”.

(More accurately [ɸaku])

That's the problem if you speak a language with about 100 possible syllables (even Mandarin, the popular synonym of a language full of homophones, has about a thousand!). I am pretty sure there are dozens like this.

I guess it might have been unclear, but the unfortunate coincidence I was trying to point to was the English word that “faku” sounds like.

One can only guess.
Indonesian dua comes from Proto-Austronesian *<duSa> /dusa/.
The Fijian form is IINM /dua/. If we assume the Proto-Austronesian form *<əsa> /əça/, we habe to assume schwa deletion (>/ça/), foritition (>/da/) and diphthongization (maybe also depalatalization?) to get /dua/. Interestingly Proto-Austronesian *d>r, so there might have been a need to gain new d's?

One can only guess.
Indonesian dua comes from Proto-Austronesian *<duSa> /dusa/.
The Fijian form is IINM /dua/. If we assume the Proto-Austronesian form *<əsa> /əça/, we habe to assume schwa deletion (>/ça/), foritition (>/da/) and diphthongization (maybe also depalatalization?) to get /dua/. Interestingly Proto-Austronesian *d>r, so there might have been a need to gain new d's?

The ACD says that it is "not clear" whether any reflex of esa/isa/asa survives in Oceanic, other than the article, and that the possible reflexes are probably morphologically complex if they're related at all. Polynesian apparently has *tasi, which has an alveolar in it but otherwise doesn't look that close to dua. The fact that the first two polynesian numbers, dua rua, rhyme, seems a little suspicious to me.

The fact that the first two polynesian numbers, dua rua, rhyme, seems a little suspicious to me.

Why though? In German, 2 and 3 rhyme too. (zwei/drei). And yes, it causes a lot of confusion. There is an alternative form of 2, "two", that descriptively is exclusively used to distinguish 2 from 3. But I get off the point...

Wipe the glass. This is the usual way to start, even in the days, day and night, only a happy one.

The fact that the first two polynesian numbers, dua rua, rhyme, seems a little suspicious to me.

Why though? In German, 2 and 3 rhyme too. (zwei/drei). And yes, it causes a lot of confusion. There is an alternative form of 2, "two", that descriptively is exclusively used to distinguish 2 from 3. But I get off the point...

Well, you just answered that question yourself, didn't you? Why do German 'zwei' and 'drei' rhyme? Because 'zwei' has been reformulated analogically in order to rhyme with 'drei'.

Well, we don't know that. But clearly 'zwei' is not regularly derived from *dwoH. There may have been some analogy from nominal and adjectival paradigms, but it's rather suspicious that the odd resulting neuter form rhymed with the next number. And then it's rather convenient that the OHG masculine form just stopped being used, replaced by the rhyming neuter form.

The point is: it's common for numbers to derive irregularly due to influence from adjacent numbers. The fact that dua and rua rhyme makes me wonder whether 'dua' has been irregularly influenced by 'rua' at some point.

The fact that the first two polynesian numbers, dua rua, rhyme, seems a little suspicious to me.

Why though? In German, 2 and 3 rhyme too. (zwei/drei). And yes, it causes a lot of confusion. There is an alternative form of 2, "two", that descriptively is exclusively used to distinguish 2 from 3. But I get off the point...

Well, you just answered that question yourself, didn't you? Why do German 'zwei' and 'drei' rhyme? Because 'zwei' has been reformulated analogically in order to rhyme with 'drei'.

Well, we don't know that. But clearly 'zwei' is not regularly derived from *dwoH. There may have been some analogy from nominal and adjectival paradigms, but it's rather suspicious that the odd resulting neuter form rhymed with the next number. And then it's rather convenient that the OHG masculine form just stopped being used, replaced by the rhyming neuter form.

The point is: it's common for numbers to derive irregularly due to influence from adjacent numbers. The fact that dua and rua rhyme makes me wonder whether 'dua' has been irregularly influenced by 'rua' at some point.

There are some Yiddish dialects that pronounce Tsvay as /t͡sveɪ/. See also Proto-Slavic *devętь from PIE *h₁néwn̥. Wiktionary comments: "the initial 'd' in Eastern Baltic and Slavic has sometimes been explained as dissimilation, or by alliteration to *desętь (“ten”)" . Also, Proto-Germanic *fedwōr "four" is that way, instead of the expected **kedwōr, because of the initial /f/ in PGerm word for "five".

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien